Panos Caribbean's goals are to enable the people of the Caribbean to conceive, drive and communicate their own development agenda. To develop media, information and communication partnerships, to communicate towards development.

To amplify the voices of the vulnerable, the marginalized and the excluded.

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Petre Williams-Raynor, Country Director for Panos Caribbean (Jamaica) plants a tree with daughter Rayne for her first birthday on April 9, toward Earth Day 2016. (Photo: Kayon Raynor)

PANOS team members, together with artistes from our Voices for Climate Change Education Project, have worked collaboratively to make Earth Day 2016 count: we have planted trees!

“About two weeks ago, one of our team members — Nastassia Fyffe — came to me indicating that Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB) was looking for ‘partners’ to help them plant 5,000 trees this Earth Day while undertaking to donate JMD100.00 to the Forestry Department for every photo uploaded of individuals planting these trees. And I thought, what a beautiful idea?” said Petre Williams-Raynor, Country Director for Panos Caribbean, Jamaica.

“And so we have ran with it: planting trees, capturing the photographs of us doing so and then sharing them via social media — with #PanosEarthDay #JMMBEarthDay. Planet Earth will not lose for our efforts, certainly not given the climate change realities facing Jamaica, as other small island developing states of the Caribbean,” she added.

“What is more, we encourage others to follow suit and thank, very specially, our Voices for Climate Change Education artistes who continue to lend their talents and individual brands to the climate change adaptation cause,” Williams-Raynor said further.

Earth inspired, the new album released under the "1.5 To Stay Alive" campaign yesterday (February 11), has won the approval of its first listeners.

“We are excited and the sky is the limit,” said Claire Bernard, Deputy Director General at the Planning Institute of Jamaica, who was present at the launch, held at the Hotel Four Seasons in Kingston.

The ‘1.5 To Stay Alive’ campaign is the work of Panos Caribbean; the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre; the Saint Lucia Ministry of Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology; the Caribbean Development Bank, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States; the Regional Council of Martinique.

It has supported the region’s negotiating positions prior to and during the recent climate change talks held in Paris in December, with the focus, throughout, on ensuring that global temperatures are limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. This is given the catastrophic climate risks — including sea level rise and extreme weather events — to the small island developing states of the region.

With Caribbean players succeeding in having the 1.5 captured as one element of the target in the outcome document from Paris, the ongoing campaign is seeking to ensure no loss of momentum as countries look to ratify the new global deal.

PHOTO: Artiste Aaron Silk with producer Linford ‘Fatta’ Marshall. Marshall, the principal of Fat Eyes Music Productions, produced three of the four new songs on the ‘Earth Inspired’ album. (Photo: Adene Chung)

KINGSTON, Jamaica, 11 February 2016 — Caribbean audiences are up for a musical treat, thanks to a new album set for release later today, under the ‘1.5 to Stay Alive’ campaign.

The campaign — the work of Panos Caribbean; the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre; the Saint Lucia Ministry of Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology; the Caribbean Development Bank, the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States; the Regional Council of Martinique — has supported the region’s negotiating positions prior to and during the recent climate change talks held in Paris in December.

Throughout, the focus has been on ensuring that global temperatures are limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, given the catastrophic climate risks — including sea level rise and extreme weather events — to the small island developing states of the region.

Léone, Danise, Nadine, Carline and Nadège are young ladies today. They try to regain a normal life after they have lined for several years in the street. Thanks to the intervention of CAFA (Centre d’Action Familiale) founded in July 1996 by Madam Kettlie Marseille, they said goodbye to this way of life.

As best they can, they have been taken into care by the programmes of CAFA. But, how long will we be there, they wonder? For adults and, mothers for two ( 2 ) of them, they no longer can be dependent on the scanty budget of CAFA. Divided between the relief to leave the street and the apprehension about a future which is not quite certain, these five (5) young ladies talk about their past in the street, the reasons why they lived there and also they talk about their hope.

Léone is eighteen (18) years old now : I found myself in the street because I accepted to be convainced by a friend of mine when I was ten ( 10 ) years old at that time.
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The report of a study by Martine Bernier and Dr. Francoise Ponticq (CRESD/UNIQ)*, funded by Save the Children Canada (SSC) and UNICEF, which was published in April 1999, reveals that the phenomenon of children living in the streets in Haiti has increased with more than 300% since 1991.

The document states that this number has increased due to the growing impoverishment of the country which has led to more urban migration.

During those last five years, it was noted that the number of girls – although on a lower level than that of boys – has increased significantly. For instance in 1991, girls represented a low percentage while in 1999, their percentage was between 20 and 33% of the total number. According to the same document, relationships between children and their parents or family members became weaker.

The children who flee the maltreatment which they suffer, most often take refuge to the streets.
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It is not an easy thing to solve the problem of deforestation in Haiti, which is directly tied to the earth’s environment. In search of a solution, some people carried out experiments, others invested a lot of money, several organizations were established, all without much results. It is a frustrating subject. In this article, I investigate past and present practices, and provide future perspectives.

Haiti was a green country, wooded during the pre-Columbian period, at the time of its discovery as well as its independence, and until 1908. It was one of the countries in the Americas where one could find good quality timber. People from European countries bought the Haitian wood products. The forests disappeared and nowadays forest cover is extremely low.

Figures for Haiti’s forest cover are hard to come by. There are not many state-owned forests. One year ago, I visited one of these: “Forêt des Pins” (the Forest of the Pines). This forest used to have more than 32 hectares of wooded land. In 1998, according to an expert’s analysis, only 28 hectares were left. A group of agronomists works in the area for the Haitian government. One agronomist stated: “ I don’t believe in the disappearance of the 4 hectares of forest.”
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Chance Alternative, a Haitian advocacy organization for deportees issues, believes that the US policies on deportation are currently insufficiently protecting the rights of individuals that are being deported. The organization knows of people that were deported while on probation, although they did not violate their probation, who are mentally disabled or suffering from severe illnesses.

Deportation is the removal of any non-citizen from a country to his or her native country, for reasons of either criminal activity or being without legal status.

The organization’s Executive Director, Michelle Karshan stated that at present Chance Alternative is party to a lawsuit against the US being brought before the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC. The lawsuit challenges the unjust policies and practices of the U.S. against lawful permanent residents convicted of minor offenses.

Chance Alternative knows of many examples. A young man on probation of age 25 from Rhodes Island, Shyler Registre, was deported in 1999, although he did not violate his probation. He was serving a two years probation and was following all the procedures ordered. During one monthly visit to the probation officer, INS awaited his arrival, and deported him.
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Eben Ezer de la Redemption primary school which objective is to educate the deprived children functions everyday from 7:30 to 12:00. The school is situated in Lintho 1, one of the unhealthy slums of Cite Soleil (a shantytown situated on the north west side of Port-au-Prince with 300000 inhabitants).

Founded in 1978 by late Andre Lindor, this school is confronted today to numerous difficulties: dark and cramped rooms, leaked roof, dilapidated walls and various problems.

The school, divided into 8 classrooms (first to 6th grade) provides an academic formation to the children of the street merchants and the unemployed of Cite Soleil.

According to Sylvine Lindor co-principal and daughter of the founder, the total number of pupils have dropped from 214 in 1999 to 186 in 2001. And this due to economic hardship, she said.
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“My name is Bertha. I was very young when I began my life on the streets. I wandered all over town looking for a better life and freedom. I have had three children in the streets for three different fathers. One is dead, a little girl. The parents of the father of Alain, the eldest child, have taken charge of him since the death of their son. Jean, who is only one month old, lives with me. To live in the streets is difficult, even when you’re alone. With a child it is much harder. Since Jean’s birth, I stopped all my activities. I wait till he turns three months before I return to the streets to continue surviving.”

This is the testimony of a street girl in Cap-Haitien, the second city of Haiti located at 252 kilometers North of the capital.

She is better known by her nickname “Set dwet” (7 fingers) because of a birth handicap, she said.
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Terrier Rouge is a community in the North-East department of Haiti situated at 36 kilometers from Cap-Haitien, the main city of the North. In 1984 the Episcopalian Church of Haiti established an agricultural technical school to train young men and women in the field of agriculture and the cultivation of vegetables in particular.

In early 2001, this centre had 37 students in the first year, with three women among them. The second year is being attended by 36 students (one woman in this group). The diploma course lasts two years, with one- week breaks following each trimester.

Sisal is the main crop that the community of Terrier-Rouge used to grow. Two factories, Fayeton and Derak, used to buy the peasant’s production of sisal.

In 1986, when the Dauphin factory closed its operations, the inhabitants turned to raising cattle, because many people believed that the land could not grow anything else than sisal.
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